Cameron must do more to convince Tory voters on Europe

The Prime Minister must be clearer about his stance on the EU

7:00AM BST 18 May 2014

SIR – While I accept that David Cameron’sstanceon Europe is the best that is on offer from any leader of the major parties (and the best from a Conservative leader since Iain Duncan Smith), there are still two questions that he needs to answer before he can be sure of my vote in 2015.

First, if a trading agreement similar to that enjoyed by Norway and Switzerland is so inferior to the relationship we have with the EU, then why aren’t those two countries clamouring to be full members?

Secondly, if he fails to achieve the seven changes that he wants in the EU, will he campaign for an “Out” vote in the 2017 referendum?

Alan Cox Belper, Derbyshire

SIR – Any dispassionate observer would say, as we approach the European elections, that there is a great deal in our present situation and prospects from which to draw not only comfort but inspiration. It is solidly enshrined in the “Plan for Britain’s Success”, set out in the Prime Minister’s seminal speech at the London Gateway on June 10 last year, and appropriately brought up to date in his article.

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Yet, such is the mood of perverse despondency among people whom one would normally think of as responsible and constructive, that the Prime Minister evidently thought it necessary to add a call to the readership to sit up and think, and to get out and vote.

Sir Peter Marshall London W8

SIR – David Cameron says, in reference to the European Union, that “the key areas we are negotiating on” are, inter alia, “getting more control over justice and home affairs”.

Is this really the same Prime Minister whose intention it is to make 35 EU police and criminal justice measures, including the iniquitous European Arrest Warrant, “subject to the full jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and the enforcement powers of the European Commission”?

The fact that he is under no obligation to take these measures and that no treaty clauses would be broken if he declined to do so, makes a mockery of the euroscepticism he implies.

Christopher Gill Bridgnorth, Shropshire

SIR – David Cameron talks a great deal about reducing immigration. He cannot do anything about the influx of people from the EU.

However, it is time he resolved the chaos in the asylum system, which has been out of control since Tony Blair’s time. A good start would be making it less difficult to deport foreign criminals.

Hugh Jones Cardiff, Glamorgan

SIR – The light is belatedly dawning on David Cameron, but that weasel word “renegotiate” trips too glibly from his lips.

Such a word is not in the EU dictionary. If he can say “Out” and mean it, he will garner a massive number of votes.

Meanwhile, we are faced with the most awful dilemma. Which is worse: to let Labour back again, or to remain in the EU?

The Tories are having a bad enough time as it is, trying to contain our ballooning deficit. Labour will bankrupt the country. Yet we must leave the EU, and only Ukip supports this.

What is one to do?

Michael Plumbe Hastings, East Sussex

SIR – I fear Richard Grant is being a little optimistic in saying the problems of the eurozone have bottomed out. A common currency covering a range of disparate economies can only succeed by having centralised economic and political control.

This is the objective that José Manuel Barroso, the President of the EU Commission, has consistently espoused: an “ever closer union”. Whether people in the eurozone understand the need to surrender much of their independence remains to be seen, but there could well be a lot of economic and civil turbulence on the way.